What If?
by auburntiger134
Summary: This is my alternate ending to the book, starting when Soda and Darry pick Pony up from the hospital. R&R!


Hey this was actually a homework assignment I had for my English class, and I wanted to see how everyone else liked it. It is an alternate ending to the story starting when Darry and Soda pick up Pony from the hospital. This is what I would have wanted to happen. If you can't tell I am a big Dally fan and that explains most of the story. ) Read and Enjoy!

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"Ponyboy!", I heard a familiar voice say. I looked up and before I could tell who it was, the person threw their arms around me. I looked at the person's face, it was Soda.

"Hey Soda", I said into Sodapop's shirt, while he smothered me. After a few minutes of struggling with my brother I finally broke out of his embrace.

I looked around trying to find Darry. Then I saw him walking in. I looked up at him, and he ran towards me and hugged me. I never thought Darry loved me until that night, when I heard him crying as he hugged me.

After a few hours at the hospital talking with the reporters, Darry turned to Soda and I and said, "Let's go home.", and we walked out to the car.

When we got home, all three of us sleepily walked into the house and fell asleep as soon as we hit the bed.

The next morning I was woken by Steve and Two-Bit jumping on my bed and yelling "Wake up Pony!"

I shot up like a bullet, looking around. The two idiots plopped down beside me, and said, "Glad to see you back home Pony."

"You two almost gave me a heart attack.", I said looking at the two guys.

I got up, got dressed, and walked into the kitchen. I had kicked the other two guys out of my room.

"Hey look at this Pony.", Soda said as I got my breakfast. "They have you as a hero.", Soda said and threw the paper at me.

"To add on to the rest of the good news, we're having a rumble against the Socs.", Steve said.

I looked up and said, "It won't do any good", I had a lot of time to think while I was up in Windrixville. I had started to think of how fighting never really solved anything, and that was why I was not going to fight.

"What are you talking about Pony, of course it will.", Steve said.

"No it won't, and I'm not going.", I said.

The rest of the guys just looked at me like I was crazy. I just ignored them, as I sat there and ate my breakfast. Darry was the one who broke the silence by saying, "Ok, come on you two, we're goin' to be late for work, if we don't get goin' right now", and hurrying Soda and Steve to the car.

"Pony", Darry said turning towards me, "don't smoke more than a pack today. If you do I'll skin ya."

"If you carry more than one bundle of roofing today, Soda and I will skin ya.", I said as I watched Darry leave laughing.

"Ok Pony, I guess we might need to clean up a little, before we go see Johnny.", Two-Bit said.

"Don't you mean I better clean up?", I said.

"Of course that's what I mean", Two-Bit said as he sat down in front of the TV.

A few hours later Two-Bit and I walked into Johnny's room, but he was asleep.

"I guess we can just leave this with him", Two-Bit said sitting the book, _Gone with the Wind_, down.

"I think I will stay here and wait for him to wake up.", I said.

"Ok, I will see ya later then", Two-Bit said as he walked out to see Dallas.

Johnny slept for about two more hours. I sat next to him reading. I was thinking about the rumble, it was about to start.

Johnny started waking up, and he looked over at me. "Pony", he said weakly, "will you read to me?", he asked, motioning towards the book in my hands.

"Of course", I said and moved over to his bed and started reading.

What felt like only a few minutes, ended up being a couple hours of reading. I would have continued to read, but Dallas ran into the room pretty beat up.

"We won, we won the rumble.", he said to Johnny smiling.

"It wasn't worth it", Johnny said.

"What are you talking about, of course it was…", Dally started, but stopped in the middle of his sentence when Johnny started to make noises.

"Are you ok Johnnycake?", I asked him.

"Come here Pony," he said weaker than before.

I leaned close to him, and Johnny said, "Stay gold.", and then he just died.

"No, Johnny wake-up!", Dally said. He couldn't take Johnny dying. He stormed out of the room, leaving me there.

I started my walk home, thinking about what had happened. The next thing I knew, I was home. I walked in, and all the guys turned to look at me. I could tell what they were about to ask, so I just answered, "Johnny's dead", and sat down and rested my head in my hands. The silence was broken by the telephone. Darry answered, and once he hung up he said "It's Dally, he robbed a grocery store. The cops are chasing him, and he needs us to hide him. We have to get to the park as soon as possible.", and then we all ran to the park.

Just as we got there Dally arrived, so did the cops. Dally pulled his gun out, and I heard Steve say, "No, we can't loose another guy.", and he ran towards Dally.

The gun shot went off, and we saw two bodies fall. We ran over and noticed one guy was still alive, it was Dally.

"Pony, you take Dally to our house.", Darry said trying to get Dally out of there before the cops could get to him.

"What happened?", I asked Dally when we got to the house.

"He saved my life, but he lost his", was the only thing I could get out of him for a while.

The next few days were terrible. We planned two different funerals, and decided to have them both on the same day.

The day of the funerals was extremely sad. Everyone sat there crying, even Dally and Darry.

After the funeral, we were walking back to the car when I noticed someone.

"Soda look", I said motioning towards Evie. Soda looked and smiled, "I'll be right back."

"Where is he going?", Darry asked.

"It's Sandy", I said. She had been talking to Evie when I saw her.

After what felt like forever, Soda and Sandy walked over smiling. "So, what's going on?" I asked.

"I explained everything to Soda, about the real reason I moved.", Sandy said.

"We then talked everything out" Soda said.

"My parents also are letting me stay here", Sandy said with a smile.

It had been a year since the two funerals, and a lot had happened in that year. I had gotten my grades up again, Soda and Sandy had gotten married. Two-Bit was still the same, no job and still in the eleventh grade, but Darry had gotten a job as a football coach, and was now making a lot more than he had ever made. As for Dally, he had stayed out of jail, only getting in trouble with the cops every now and then, and he had also come back to school.

As I stood there in between my two friends graves, I looked at them and fought back tears. "Hey guys, thanks to you two everything has changed for the better. It all started the day of your funeral…"

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I hope you enjoyed it!


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